Facebook ads TERRORIZING gay people – so I found out for myself!

By Ian, October 1, 2009

Guest post by Dennis Yu, CEO of Blitzlocal LLC, which specializes in Facebook Advertising

A couple of BlitzLocal’s gay employees were telling me about how they removed gender preferences from their Facebook profile, since they saw nothing but gay ads all day long. So I decided to change my profile status to male seeking male.

And within a few minutes, here are the ads that I saw:

And then I went into Facebook Ad Manager to see how much traffic there is. Here’s how it breaks down:

79,296,020 people in the US, 18+
32,954,640 of these are males 18+
334,300 are interested in men (therefore, gay– if you’re slow)
173,780 are single (they’ve listed themselves as single)

Do you really think there are only 173,780 single gay males in the United States on Facebook? I’d think that San Francisco alone has a multiple of that. Thus, only 1% of males in the US on Facebook are willing to identify themselves as being gay. Part of that might be a social stigma, but I’d also think that some of this is to do with the non-stop parade of gay ads if you do identify yourself as gay.

Facebook, to their credit, holds the user experience over making money. Their dating policy states that you must target the user’s gender, their sexual preference, and mark “single”. Thus, you cannot advertise dating ads to folks who are married or have not specified themselves as single. Unless you have a whitelisted account and are able to blast ads to untargeted males.

If you want to be an effective marketer, you have to walk a mile in your customer’s shoes. Try changing your profile to being any of the folks you are targeting. You’ll learn something about how they feel, plus see what competitors are doing in the ad space.

What do you think of this? Is this over personalization of ads, the inevitable march of progress in advertising, the next step for Google to take, the next gold rush for affiliate marketing?

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It is not surprising that this situation exists. I am sure there are other demographics that get bombarded by unfavorable ads. I guess this is what happens when you allow advertisers to target based on precise criteria like age & sexual preference.
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I think its fine for companies to do this, because after all they need to get the best bang for their buck, and by advertising to their “target market” or as close to it as they can, then they are better off. That’s just my take on it. I am sure there are ALOT of gay people who will not publicly state that they are gay and what not.. but it would be too much of a risk financially for companies to try to advertising everyone in general.

Till then,

Jean
http://finchsells.com Finch

Did you make the “male seeking male” change to your personal account?

God damn, that’s some dedication to the bitchin’ cause if you did. I’m not sure if I could get away with all my friends and family having a “Finch is now gay” alert pop up in their news feed. Even in the name of affiliate marketing.

Kudos for the balls.
http://proimer.com List Building System Blog

I wont believe that there are only 173,780 gays along United States..
that’s a crazy fake results…
Hannah

I thought this was gonna be about homophobes making stupid ads telling gay people they’re going to hell…
http://justindupre.com Justin Dupre

Lololol MAKE MONEY GET PAID!

Ian was gay for a few minutes. I remember running pics of guys in speedos. CTR was like .3% and I was laughing at all the money I was making.

God bless gay people!
http://dennis-yu.com Dennis Yu

Ian,

What’s interesting is when you select and unselect items to figure out counts– to calculate the intersections of who is “single” versus not “single” and so forth.
http://twitter.com/JonathanVolk Jonathan Volk

So wait BlitzLocal is full of Homos? Barman get on this $hit right now
http://dennis-yu.com Dennis Yu

Jonathan,

BlitzLocal is full of every type of target Facebook offers! One day our folks are listed as gay, then Christian, then black, then Beyonce fans– the list goes on. It’s not like Google, where you can just type in that keyword and see who is running ads. With Facebook, you have to BE the target.

Speaking of, you ready for another post on Facebook advertising? I have one I’m writing tonight.
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I had no idea they targeted us based on our gender preferences, I guess that’s marketing for you… but annoying.
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I would think most people not admitting they were gay were not doing so because of the ads. They likely had other reasons such as unknowing family members. Even if gay people are bombarded by gay related ads, what is so wrong about the situation? At least they are getting relevant ads that may interest them.
http://www.AffiliateVentureGroup.com Ricky Ahuja

and what about people that go both ways? I hear there is a big market for that out there.
http://www.proimer.com Online List Building Blog

Its not really a surprise result. There are lot of gays now. Good for them that they have their ads.
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may be they are just mistakenly click the option ,haha
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any of the smaller niches are going to be flooded with AM offers. And there is def 2-3x multiple of gays in San Fran alone.
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I think there is nothing for Facebook to display relevant ads for BlitzLocalâ??s gay employees? That’s not surprise at all, but the thing that surprises me is the statistic itself, there is a lot of gay people in US.

Regards,
Lee
http://dennis-yu.com Dennis Yu

In the last 4 days, Facebook has been really cracking down on affiliates that have too many ad disapprovals or are scamming the system. Lot of folks getting banned, so just watch out not to have too many disapprovals or things that you know are misleading to users. I’ve talked to at least 3 folks who just got banned and can’t get back in.

Facebook cares less about money– and cares more about a great user experience. That’s bad for most affiliates, but good for the folks that are promoting local businesses– no problem with disapprovals there.
http://www.ppcpimps.com PPCpimps

@Dennis – you can still do nationally targeted campaigns. You just have to play by there rules. I doubt that they change their attitude any time soon either. They care way more about user experience than the quick dollar. As soon as affiliates see that they might have a shot at actually making money on FB.
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they are much but i don’t think that facebook profile are 100% true, sometimes people use fake info or they don’t care about gender status .
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Its not really a surprise result. There are lot of gays now. I had seen this kind of so many reports.
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if gay people are bombarded by gay related ads, what is so wrong about the situation? At least they are getting relevant ads that may interest them.
http://www.waynedog.com WayneDog

I don’t see the problem here. If you are a cock muncher and can’t resist the sexy ads then click them and go munch on some cock, if not then live your life and enjoy the FREE service Facebook is providing to you.
http://www.bloggingwithchris.com Chris Peterson

Dennis, Hi!
I agree those numbers aren’t close to accurate. However, would you really be able to have a clear psychographics of the customers when they aren’t willing to disclose the facts like sexual preferences?

What are your thoughts on tracing the targeted customers better?
http://www.totallyfreeonlinedating.co.uk/ Sarah

I can’t see much wrong with their dating policy, after all facebook is loosing money. It’s gotta do something to keep it going.
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Haha, thats kind of funny, actually.
http://silverstockreport.com/ Silver

“If you want to be an effective marketer, you have to walk a mile in your customer’s shoes.” Very well said. You’re there to attract them and not scare them off. There’s a thin line between marketing for people and marketing for money. If you want to combine them, then you have to practice what you preach.
Dave MC Crazy

I hate the fact that when I show someone something on my fb page to the left is nothing but stupid gay ads. I don’t really care to share my sexual preference with others whom I just want to share a simple post or picture with. How about an ad for a car or something, way to go facebook!
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There are many these kind of incidents I have noticed I think it is something that really requires attention. FB earned the huge amount of revenue this time. Now I get an idea of where it came from?
Pat

I don’t get your point. Why would a gay person get angry because they see an ad targeted at someone like them? Do women get angry when they see ads targeted at women? Do poker players get angry when they see ads targeted at poker players?

What gives here?

I am more annoyed at YOU misleading headline: “Facebook ads TERRORIZING gay people”

How the hell does target advertising turn into terrorizing?
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I think they ads need to be mixed up a little…gays don’t want to only see gay ads…other than liking the same sex gay people are the same as others…interesting in phones, online games, hiking, sports etc etc
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dating ads that have pretty women are very catchy ,,
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unfortunately the ad must work or they wouldn’t keep paying to advertise that way